5 Ways to Sleep Deeper and Fall Asleep Faster

Sleep is probably one of the most important aspects of your health. It can affect your immune system, metabolism, memory, learning, motor skills, alertness, and even exercise performance. If you’re having trouble sleeping through the night or feeling rested in the mornings, it may be time to evaluate your sleeping habits. Are your habits conducive to good quality sleep, or hindersome? Find out how you can sleep deeper and fall asleep faster with these 5 lifestyle tips.

1. Be consistent with your bed time

Consistency is key for your internal clock and sleep drive. This is a lot easier when you have a full-time job, let me tell ya! I used to go to bed at the same time every day, and it was great. Then I quit my job and had WAY more free time, but no structure to my life which led to me getting about 6 or 7 hours of sleep every night. So, even if you don’t have any pressing matters to wake up for, create a consistent bed time for yourself and only break it on special occasions.

2. Avoid bright white lights before bed

This includes smart phones, laptop screens, televisions, and tablets. Set your devices to automatic lighting, so that they will dim in the dark. Studies have found that constant exposure to bright lights at night can suppress melatonin levels, which your body relies on to determine the time of day. If you’re trying to stay awake all night, keep the lights on. Studies have found that exposing yourself to too much light at night can trick your body into thinking that it’s day time, thus throwing off your internal clock.

3. Learn to associate your bed with sleep

I’m the absolute worst at going to bed as soon as I lay down. I don’t have insomnia, but it takes me more than 4.8 seconds to fall asleep at night. And thanks to my friend Alison, I now lie awake at night obsessively playing 2048 on my bright smartphone. So, don’t be like me. Train your body to sleep when you get in bed.

If you can’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed. Go to another room and read, do some pillar holds, or stretch your aching muscles, and then try again. Same goes for waking up in the middle of the night. Once your body learns to associate your bed with sleep, you’ll be able to fall asleep faster and sleep deeper.

4. Get a sleep cycle alarm clock

Gone are the days of relying on single-purpose alarm clocks. If you use your smartphone to wake you up every morning, consider a sleep cycle alarm clock app. It works by monitoring your movements during the night to measure your sleep patterns.

With this information, it can wake you up during your light sleep phase rather than pulling you out of deep sleep, which is the restorative sleep that we need so badly. Being rudely awoken from deep sleep is what makes you feel like a zombie who wants to punch a kitten in the morning… unless you’re a morning person, in which case you wake up to bunnies dancing on clouds and rainbows. I tested a few apps, and these were my favorite:

Smart Alarm Clock (Free)

This is my favorite of the free apps that I tried. You can set a soothing noise to fall asleep to like rain, ocean waves, white noise, and TONS more. You can toggle between a sleep cycle alarm and standard alarm. You set the time that you want to wake up, and the app does the rest.

Your phone has to be placed somewhere on your bed, and it doesn’t work well if you have a fancy tempurpedic bed that doesn’t move, so consider yourself warned. Once you wake up, the app will tell you how much light and deep sleep you logged for the night and it gives you a sleep quality percentage, based on how often you woke up during the night. If you want to see monthly statistics, that requires an upgrade to a whopping $1.99.

Sleep Cycle alarm clock ($1.99)

This is my favorite sleep cycle app that costs money. It’s pretty amazing. This app also lets you play soothing music to fall asleep and automatically turns it off once you’re asleep. It can also wake you up with Philips hue light to emulate sunrise if you have blackout curtains or wake up when it’s dark out. This app even has a weekend setting so that you can track your sleep without having to set an alarm. It’s pretty rad.

5. Invest in ear plugs

If you’re a light sleeper, you may want to try sleeping with ear plugs. If the sound of footsteps wakes you up at night, then raves next door, elephants living above you, and snoring dogs won’t help anything. Try drowning out the noise with a noise machine of your own, or some noise-reduction ear plugs. If you have a tiny human in your house that you need to hear, consider taking turns with late night/early mornings feedings so that one of you can sleep through the night. If that doesn’t work, just count down the days until their next phase of life: sleeping through the night.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for lifestyle modifications to improve your quality of sleep, try these 5 tips. Have another tip that helps you sleep at night? Share your experience below in the comments 🙂

Comments

2 Comments

for those who have to use their computer at night: i have found f.lux to be really helpful. it minimizes the amount of ‘blue screen’ during the evening hours, but has regular brightness during the day (it self-adjusts depending on your zip code/time zone). and it is free! also, epsom salt baths in the evening help raise magnesium levels before bed. i swear by those as well. 🙂

Hi Julie! Thanks for sharing! I haven’t tried the f.lux before, but that sounds awesome! And I definitely agree with you on the epsom salts! I love them so much I’m dedicating a whole post to them 🙂 Stay tuned!

Categories

About the Author

Hi, I’m Aicacia – just another girl who loves to climb rocks, eat food, and see new places. As a Registered Dietitian, I really wanted to combine my love of nutrition and climbing, so I created Climb Healthy... Read the full bio [here]